THURSDAY, NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Ez 12: 1-12 Ps 78: 56-59, 61-62 Mt 18:21–19: 1
THE DEBT WE CARRY
Brother Thomas had kept a careful ledger. Not in ink, but in memory. He had decided to remember every slight, every betrayal, every word that landed like a stone. He carried it the way a man carries a pack uphill; with shoulders bent, breath short, eyes fixed on the ground. “The soul that is attached to anything,” wrote John of the Cross, “however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.”
Thomas knew the parable well. He had heard it a hundred times. Ten thousand talents forgiven. A debt so vast it staggers the imagination and yet the forgiven man goes straight out and seizes his neighbour by the throat over a few coins. Every time Thomas heard it, he shook his head at the servant’s foolishness. Until the morning, he recognized himself. It was a small thing, as most wounds are. A superior who had spoken carelessly. A trust deeply broken. Thomas had received so much grace in his own life. His failures covered, failures forgotten by those who loved him and still he found himself standing in the corridor of his own heart, hands wrapped around someone else’s debt, demanding payment.
Thérèse of Lisieux, who understood small wounds better than most, wrote with great gentleness: “It is not always possible to keep quiet; but it is always possible to speak without bitterness.” Thomas sat with that for a long time. Ezekiel made a sign to a people who could not see. He dug through walls, moved in darkness, and carried burdens on shoulders, all to show a people that ‘This is what exile looks like when we refuse to turn back.’ And Thomas understood, finally, that unforgiveness is its own exile. A prison, built stone by stone from inside.
The king in the parable does not ask the servant to forget. He asks him to remember what was given and let that remembering change his heart. “The measure of love,” wrote Thérèse simply, “is to love without measure.” Thomas opened the ledger. And slowly, page by page, he let it burn.
Response: Never forget the deeds of the Lord!
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